EPA recognizes Yolo County among nation's leading green power users

For the first time, Yolo County has been ranked as No. 14 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Top 20 On-site list of the largest green power users as a result of generating nearly 14 million kilowatt-hours of green power from on-site solar energy production.

The program creates enough green power to meet 152 percent of the county's electricity use.

"This is a huge honor and we are proud to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," said Terry Vernon, Yolo County deputy director of General Services. "Using green power helps our county become more sustainable, while also sending a message to others across the U.S. that supporting clean sources of electricity is a sound business decision and an important choice in reducing climate change risk."

Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.

"This is a demonstration of our proactive choice to switch away from traditional sources of electricity generation and support cleaner renewable energy alternatives," said Yolo County Supervisor Matt Rexroad.

According to the EPA, Yolo County's green power generation of nearly 14 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 2,000 passenger vehicles per year or the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of more than 1,000 average American homes annually.